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- cross-posted to:
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You used a pan instead of a pot. No wonder.
When softening butter in the microwave, me thinking “it’ll only take a couple seconds to handle this other thing” always ends in a puddle and tears.
Adjustable wattage? If you crank it low, you can get it softer without making puddles
In my experience microwaves modulate how long the magnetron is on for, not the amount of power its using for each running cycle. eg 30 seconds on 50% will run at full power for a total of 15 seconds, and idle the other 15 seconds.
Yeah but it is not 15 full seconds on and 15 full seconds off, it alternates much faster so the heat has the time to dissipate a bit.
Spoiler: that is also how LEDs dim and it works perfectly.
Lay a utensil across the top to break the bubbles.
Not even once has this worked for me. The bubbles are waaay too small for that.
That typically indicates too small a pot, not enough water for a good water/pasta ratio, unsalted water (salt doesn’t just flavor, it raises the boiling point slightly), and the spoon not being wood and/or making sub-optimal contact.
For each 450 grams (~1Lb) of most pastas:
5.5 L (roughly 6 US quarts) capacity pot, filled 3/4ths of the way (you want room for the bubbles trapped in the starches before they boil over).
Salted water.
Do not add pasta until the water is well and truly at a roiling boil (adding the pasta will lower the temperature briefly).
Immediately upon adding pasta, lay a wooden spoon (best material for what we want) diagonally across the top of the pot, directly touching the surface of the water (you want to encourage that as the nucleation site).
Then cook and stir as normal. It can’t fail. Physics won’t allow it (in standard sea-level atmospheric conditions, I don’t know your life).
Cooking at elevation has the opposite effect as well. Where I am water boils around 96.6c, so most pastas take the longer time just to get al dente.
I am filing this info away, thank you! I’ve always wanted to go on a camping spree and with some many mountains I can get to, this will come in handy.
lay a wooden spoon (best material for what we want) diagonally across the top of the pot, directly touching the surface of the water
Wait. Are you holding the wooden spoon all along, or letting it fall into the water? How can you put a wooden spoon across the top of a pot and have it touch the water, without the pot being totally full? I am boggled.
I probably worded that weird and compressed too much into the ‘cook as normal and stir part’ that’s my bad.
You put the spoon lightly on top of the pan, across. You need the right sizes of both so the spoon balances across and it’s center is ready to make contact with the water.
You do it immediately upon adding the pasta and adjust the heat. The spoon is ready for round 1, but round 1 likely won’t be for a couple of stirs yet.
So you whet the spoon’s hungry appetite for bubbles by using it as your stirring utensil and returning it to its sentry position after every stir.
The wooden spoon won’t touch the water when you first lay it across, but it should be the first thing the expanding bubbling starch froth touches when it does rise to occupy that space.
Edit: Pot. We cook pasta in a pot. Stupid English, not my first language and I am intoxicated, sorry.
I’m gonna keep using my method of just… Not filling the pot to full and boiling the Devil out of it.
This is cool though, really. Thanks for explaining it :)
They collect and burst on it. I’ve never had an issue, but wood does work better. Some does make it over, it it’s not a cascade if it takes off.
If you leave the burner on max, well yeah.
I’m in this meme, and I love it. As a bonus, the pasta part is also on point.
This happens ever damn time… Watch pot never boils is words to live by
Also drinking wine from a Wolf Cola soda can works to.
